Farha - Bellydance Student Resources Blog

Professional Belly dancer in Syracuse, NY

Level 2: Instruments and About Cane pt 1

3/31/2020

Instrument of the Week
Violin is a soulful instrument, and the descendent of next week's instrument, the rhebaba. It is also called kaman, kemenja, kamanga, etc in Arabic. Sometimes Arabic musicians will play it upright, the way a rhebaba would be played.

You don't see much of the violinist in the 2nd clip, but at 2:55 the character Zou Zou (an Alma (singular of Awali,), there with her family troupe to entertain at the wedding, where it's expected they'll tease the bride and groom about the upcoming night) says "she's the kemenga (violin) and he's the oud, and together they'll make lovely music"

Level 2: Instruments Unit & About Sword

3/10/2020

Instrument of the Week
This week's instrument was the clarinet, more popular in Greek and Turkish than Egyptian/Arabic music, but a lovely instrument to dance to. Since I'm sure you all know what a clarinet looks like, here's a Greek dancer and a Turkish dancer performing to it, one dancing to a composed song and one to a takeem.

Level 2: Instruments Unit & About Fan Veil

3/3/2020

Instrument of the Week

One reason for going over individual instruments in class, and for practicing phrasing, and why I make y'all improvise, is that I want to, proverbially, teach you to fish, rather than giving a fish. When you learn to hear what the music is telling you to do you will be able to dance to any song you enjoy, and not have to depend on anyone else for choreography. Metaphorically, you can feed yourself, and have the option of expressing your own feeling through your dance, rather than having someone else put "words" in your mouth. I know it can be frustrating to work through these new skills, but I hope this encourages you and shows why it is worth it.

This week, we worked on another wind instrument, the mizmar. This instrument is associated with Upper Egypt (South of Cairo and north of Nubia, AKA the Saidi region). A family might all play the mizmar, with the oldest or most skilled getting to do the fancy notes, and the youngest or least skilled playing the drone. Mizmar is also played often with dancing horses, who are trained from a young age to get used to the sound (and volume) of the instrument. The horses are sometimes famous.

A similar sounding instrument, the mijwiz, is popular in Lebanese music (they might also use mizmar, mijwiz is more like a small arghul.)

bonus instrument 1: the mijwiz

Arghul, popular in Palestine, Egypt, and more

Level 2: Instruments Unit & About Shamadan

2/28/2020

Instrument of the Week

We worked on the Kanoon and talked about takeem (also spelled taqasim, taqsim, takseem, taxim, etc, etc). There is a structure to it, but that's pretty technical and for now you should just be aware that it is the musician following their feeling and displaying artistry. One interesting thing, it means "division" in Arabic, and something along the lines of "bridge/connection" in Turkish. It is often used to create a smooth transition from one song to another, especially if there is a maqam (mode/scale/key) change from one song to the next.

Here's an article about the middle Eastern music in general, which I'm wishing I'd sent earlier in the semester ^_^

On the topic of call and response, here's one of the songs we danced to, you can see the two types of bands (a "hassaballa" brass band, and a traditional "tet ensemble" being conducted by the lady with the flower) go back and forth

Level 2: Instruments Unit & About Wings

2/28/2020

Instrument of the Week

After practicing variations on our safety moves and doing simon says to improve movement recall, we worked on nai (aka ney) takeem. Part of the nafkh (blown instruments) family with a lovely sustained sound.

Level 2: Instruments Unit & About Tray

2/28/2020

Instrument of the Week

I wrote up a little thing about levels of musicality. This semester we're working on two parts of the most zoomed in level, as well as the 2nd most zoomed in. When we do choreographies we will use all of these skills to make sense of the choreo, hear the cues in the music and keep track of timing, and make it easier both to remember what part of the choreo we're at and to jump back in if we forget part of the choreography. They are also foundational skills that will help you to improvise and to write your own choreographies.

This week's instrument was the bouzuki, something you hear a lot in Greek music and almost not at all outside of it. As the second clip shows, you don't need to dance as fast as the bouzuki feels, you can fall back on the more mellow beat.

Level 2: Instruments Unit & About Veil

2/26/2020

Instrument of the Week
For anyone who didn't get this as an introductory student, here's my guide for picking out and getting used to finger cymbals.

And here is a link to my post about many of the instruments we'll be going over (plus a couple that didn't fit into the 11 week semester), so you can see each instrument being played . We're starting with the "plucked" family of instruments, and this week we worked with the warm tones of the oud.

Watching the musician play can give you ideas for how to dance to an instrument.

You can also hear how the sound of the oud impacts familiar songs

Level One:Undulations Unit, Class 4

2/8/2020

Level One:Undulations Unit, Class 3

2/8/2020

Level One:Undulations Unit, Class 2

2/8/2020

Level One:Undulations Unit, Class 1

2/8/2020

Level One: Infinities Unit, Class 4

2/8/2020

Level One: Infinities Unit, Class 3

2/8/2020

Level One: Infinities Unit, Class 2

2/8/2020

Level One: Infinities Unit, Class 1

2/7/2020

Level One: Figure 8 Unit, Class 4

2/7/2020

Level One: Figure 8 Unit, Class 3

2/7/2020

Level One: Figure 8 Unit, Class 2

2/7/2020

Level One: Figure 8 Unit, Class 1

2/7/2020

Level One: Circle Unit, Class 4

2/7/2020

Level One: Circle Unit, Class 3

2/7/2020

Level One: Circle Unit, Class 2

2/7/2020

Level One: Circle Unit, Class 1

2/7/2020

Levels of Musicality

1/2/2020

Now, I don't mean levels in terms of how skilled a dancer is, this post is about how zoomed in, or out, on the music you are. Each level of musicality corresponds to different skills you can practice. You've probably taken classes or workshops around these levels. Maybe you're about to sign up for workshops at a festival and are trying to pick from different topics, or maybe you are looking back a smattering of learning and wondering how it all fits together. Hopefully (and if you're in my class, I've sent this to you as part of your level 2 information) you're reading this ahead of time, so you can see how the things we're doing in class build into a whole.

Folk Dance Styles of the MENAHT Region

6/7/2019

Hello bellydance students! This post is going to list many of the folk dances of the MENAHT area. MENAHT is a short hand was of saying Middle East, North Africa, Hellenic (Greek), and Turkey. Thanks to the influence of various empires and the silk road I've also included Iran. Bellydance music and shows will often include references to many of these folk dances, sometimes in a tableau during the folkloric part of an Egyptian stage show, sometimes as a verse in an oriental entrance piece, sometimes in the name of an ATS move that subtly references one of the folk dances of that area. Knowing about the different folk dances and folkloric dances will enhance your appreciation for bellydance shows and MENAHT music. And who knows, maybe you'll even find a new dance that you want to learn to do!

Most of these dances are not dances I am familiar with, they are listed here because the goal of this post is NOT for you to memorize all of these dances, or to learn all of them. Instead, I want you to take away from this post that, although Hollywood or certain news outlets (or even certain historians-with-an-agenda) might portray this as a homogenous area, each section of that acronym MENAHT is diverse and each culture is a beautiful part of the mosaic.

Hopefully you'll find some dances, regions, and cultures you want to learn more about, but I really believe no one person could possibly do all of these dances, certainly not well. So for now, knowing that they exist, appreciating the diversity, and maybe finding one you'd like to start with is the main goal.